Apple today announced it has sold a record-breaking nine million new iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c models, just three days after the launch of the new iPhones on September 20. In addition, more than 200 million iOS devices are now running the completely redesigned iOS 7, making it the fastest software upgrade in history.

Apple is reporting a total number for what it deems new products. It never, or very rarely, gives product line segmentations. (This would be very valuable data to competitors and market analysts; Apple is already one of the more straightforward and transparent in reporting financial data.) It will give some segmentation insight by releasing numbers for new products. This is what they've done here. Perfectly consistent with their reporting methods. That you deem the 5C as not new, but rather last year's internal components with a new shell, and Apple considers it a new product is not really remarkable or worthy of suspicion or conspiracy theories.

Ugh... I don't mind Apple reporting it this way - I mind the media taking the number and comparing it to last year as if it meant something...

The Apple press release does not compare this directly to previous launches, they only say it is "record breaking". That's fine, no issue. It is certainly record breaking, as it is the 1st time they released 2 phones... They never say what record they broke. Anyway, I never said I had an issue with how Apple reported it in their press release.

But every single solitary story I have seen posted in the media about this press release immediately compares it to last years launch of 5 million units... it is not comparable.

I'm not saying there is a conspiracy, just that the media is behaving rather irresponsibly with the data...